


A Close Call in Hell's Kitchen

by BeaArthurPendragon



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Awkwardness, Blanket Permission, Crushes, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, Mistakes were made, Pre-Slash, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-09 08:45:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17998658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeaArthurPendragon/pseuds/BeaArthurPendragon
Summary: Late one night, long after Nelson Fine Meats is closed for the day, Matt and Theo almost catch each other doing things they'd really, really, really rather not explain.Or: Theo is an idiot, Matt gets sloppy, and they both just have to make the best of it.





	A Close Call in Hell's Kitchen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DJClawson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DJClawson/gifts).



> Inspired by DJClawson's super-fun [Theo Nelson](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1202407) series. This would be set a little before that one begins. Some details are probably different (or wrong). 
> 
> I wanted to play with the idea of excruciating awkwardness.
> 
> Filling about a zillion prompts here!  
> -Brandywine421 gave me: Run  
> -Daredevil Bingo: Glasses  
> -MCU Kink Bingo: Blindfold
> 
> Thanks to Pogopop and Longdaysjourney for brainstorming and beta feedback!

It was nearly midnight at Nelson Fine Meats and Theo poured himself a few fingers of Jameson’s to reward himself for actually finishing his taxes a full six weeks before the filing deadline. It was always weird being in the shop this late, but there was something about sitting in that uncomfortable chair in front of his work computer that helped him focus on boring things. Or, in this case, excruciatingly tedious things. His money wasn’t even all that complicated, really, but there were federal forms and state forms and city forms, and Christ, so many forms. By the time he was done checking and re-checking his work, the numbers were swimming before his eyes.

He drained the glass in a single swallow, made a silent prayer to whatever gods were real that he hadn’t forgotten to deduct his student loan interest or accidentally reported the entire value of the mutual fund he’d inherited from his grandfather as income (again), and clicked “Submit.”

Then he poured himself another three fingers to sip while he printed his records. The printer was in the back office, where Foggy and his partners were working temporarily until they could find a permanent office, but when he went back there he knew from the chattering sound that he’d sent the file to the wrong printer.

Matt’s was loud as hell, almost like a typewriter—which he supposed it was, in a way. He walked over to it and watched it slowly spit out more than half a page of braille before remembering that it took special paper and was probably expensive and he shouldn’t waste it. He switched the printer off and lay the half-printed (half-embossed?) page flat on Matt’s spare, neatly arranged desktop. It was completely devoid of personal items—just an inbox, an outbox, a space for his laptop, a chipped Columbia Law mug half-full of cold black coffee, and the unsharpened pencil he sometimes twirled on his knuckles when he and Foggy were brainstorming.

He touched the page with his fingertip, then closed his eyes to test whether he could distinguish the letters from one another. He’d always wondered what it felt like—knew better than to ask, of course—but lately he’d found himself wanting to know everything about Matt in a way that made him blush like a teenager again.

It was an old attraction, one that went back to his sophomore year of high school, when Foggy brought his new college roommate home for Christmas dinner. He was smart and good-looking and had a dry sense of humor that served as a perfect foil to Foggy’s ebullience—and yeah, the blind thing had added a layer of mystique at first, but only at first. They were friendly but never friends, and now, 15 years and several boyfriends later, his crush had subsided into little more than an idle fantasy to occupy his mind when he jacked off sometimes.

That is, until Theo’s dumbass brother had the dumbass idea of moving his firm into the back room of the shop while they hunted for a new office and tore that old scab right off.

He shook his head, threw the page away and went back to his computer to re-send the file to the correct printer, topping his glass off as he did. As he walked back to the office, he grabbed his scarf off the coat rack without thinking. He set his whiskey down next to Foggy and Karen’s printer—yup, he was definitely feeling it—and tied the scarf around his eyes.

“I’m going to hell for this,” he murmured to himself as he began to feel his way around the office, holding his hands out the way he’d seen Matt do it.

The first thing he encountered was Foggy’s desk. He paused before it, lightly touching everything on it, trying not to knock anything over—unlike Matt’s, Foggy’s desk was overflowing with personal items. When he came to the line of plastic dinosaurs on the edge of the desk that abutted the wall, he made a little game of picking them up each in turn and trying to identify the species by touch: T-rex, stegosaurus, brontosaurus, triceratops. Easy peasy.

 _Not bad, Nelson,_ he preened as he turned and made for the center of the room, a little more quickly this time. _Not bad at all._

Comeuppance was swift, and he hissed as a soft part of his thigh caught the sharp corner of Karen’s desk hard. Christ that hurt, he thought, gingerly kneading the spot. No wonder Matt always had at least one bruise.

It was impossible of course. Matt was his brother’s best friend, and fucking Ivy League genius to boot. Theo was just the kid brother who’d dropped out of City College two years into a business major to help his folks run the shop. Even if Matt was into guys—which he had never confirmed—he was way, way out of Theo’s league.

No, Theo was just going to have to wait this crush out until Matt and Foggy found a new—

“Fuck!”

He’d hooked his foot beneath the cord to the floor lamp next to the battered leather sofa that served as the firm’s waiting room, yanking the damn thing over as he walked past. Actually, it fell into him, but because he was an idiot wearing a blindfold, he’d fumbled the catch and somehow manage to bat it away from him instead of grasping it, sending it crashing to the floor rather more forcefully than it might have if it had simply fallen.

“Hello? Who’s there?”

Theo froze, flushed hotter than he ever had before, then recovered enough to yank his scarf down around his neck to see Matt standing at the back door. He was backlit by the security lights in the alley but the posture of his silhouette was all Theo needed to see to know he’d been startled.

Exactly how bad would it be if he just took off running right now without a word? It would be bad, right? Matt would call the police and it would be a whole thing, and—yeah, it would be bad.

Theo cleared his ashen throat and turned toward the back door. “Just me. Theo. Sorry, I knocked over your lamp.”

Matt gave a relieved little laugh, shoving what looked like a black winter hat into his back pocket, and felt his way cautiously over to his desk. “Working late?” He kept his hands lower when he felt his way around like that, Theo realized. That’s why Karen’s desk had caught him by surprise.

“Doing my taxes,” Theo croaked. Matt was dressed down for the evening in a rather close-fitting black henley and black jeans that showed off a much more muscular body than Theo had expected. (He’d been so skinny in college.) The effect was—flattering, to say the least. He wasn’t wearing a coat or his glasses, either. Wasn’t the first time he’d seen Matt without them over the years, but it hadn’t happened often. God, he was pretty. “I needed Foggy’s printer. You?”

“Me? Oh,” Matt said hesitantly. “Ah, I’ve got court tomorrow. Realized I’d left one of my files here.”

“Oh,” Theo said, as though it was Completely Normal for him to be standing half-drunk in a pool of shattered light bulb glass wearing a wool scarf indoors. “Uh, I’ll clean up the lamp. Pretty sure I totaled it, unfortunately.”

“I won’t miss it.”

Theo barked a nervous laugh at that, then flushed again when he saw the corners of Matt’s mouth quirk up.  

“Anyway, I’m just going to, you know,” Theo said, waving pointlessly at the shattered lamp. “Take care of this.”

Theo went back into the shop to fetch the broom, cursing his idiocy with every step. He dawdled in the utility closet for a while, hoping against hope that Matt would just grab his file and go, but when he returned, Matt was still there, kneeling beside the locked bottom drawer of his filing cabinet.

Theo whistled a little as he swept, mostly out of an anxious need to fill the silence instead of any cheer. Matt’s surprise arrival had sobered him and then some; a sort of hysterical shame had begun to slowly fill the void left by his high.

To make everything worse, Matt was just standing up and unfolding his cane when Theo went to put the broom back in the utility closet.

“Uh, walk you out?” Theo mumbled, mostly because it seemed rude not to.

That fleeting smile again. Theo's eyes locked onto the little crow's-foot crinkles that appeared at the corners of Matt's eyes when he did, and he wondered why Matt had always felt he needed to cover them up. (File under: "More questions you're not supposed to ask, dummy.") “Sure.”

“No file?” Theo asked, glancing at Matt’s empty left hand.

Matt flushed a little. “Must be back at my place after all. Stupid of me.”

“That’s a pain.”

“It’s okay. I don’t live very far.”

“Was wondering why you didn’t have a coat.”

Matt gave another fleeting smile, or a wince—Theo wasn’t sure which. “You sound like your mother.”

Theo laughed. “Accurate.”

Theo died again in the alley when his arm accidentally brushed Matt’s as he finished locking the door, and Matt lifted his hand to take his elbow. It hadn’t occurred to him to offer—that had always been Foggy’s job—and Matt’s touch reminded him that he should have and he flushed red again.

The pressure of Matt’s hand was light but sure as they wound their way around dumpsters and trash cans and discarded boxes. Only then did he realize Matt was limping a little bit.

“Hurt yourself?” Theo asked.

“Oh,” Matt said dismissively. “Tripped over a curb earlier tonight. It happens.”

“Want me to hail you a cab?”

“No, I’m fine,” Matt said. “It’s just a few blocks.”

The rest of their conversation was awkward but not awful; Matt was a good small-talker, asking him questions about butchery and what it’s like to run a family business in a city as expensive as New York. It was probably a survival skill, Theo thought—Matt was no doubt acutely aware of how weirdly intimate it was to walk like this. Theo wondered if it was uncomfortable for him, too, having to touch strangers all the time, or if he was just used to it. 

At any rate, Theo was grateful for the patter, since it turned out that Matt’s apartment was unavoidably on his way to the subway and he needed something to distract him from the prospect of Matt’s hand on his arm for the next three blocks and two avenues. He knew it wasn’t flirting, but his body was having a hard time getting the memo, and geeking out over the finer points of carving blade and underblade steaks was a fairly effective way to keep his dick in check. Besides, this was something he knew a lot more about than Matt. It was fun to show off.

Matt grinned a little as they walked past Josie’s. “The last real dive in Hell’s Kitchen,” he said almost wistfully. He wasn’t wrong; Midtown’s glamour had swallowed the old neighborhood whole.

Theo bit back the impulse to ask Matt if he wanted to stop for a drink, deciding for no very good reason that it was up to Matt to make the first move. Another hangover from high school, when the three years that separated them in age felt like half a lifetime, when he wouldn’t have dared presume to make a move. Even now that the difference between 31 and 34 wasn’t worth mentioning at all, Matt seemed so much worldlier. Though perhaps it was the hard childhood Foggy had sometimes mentioned.

He didn’t realize that he’d drifted to a stop until Matt pushed on his elbow a little. “I’m just up there, third from the corner.”

“Right,” Theo said. Of course Matt was in a hurry. He had court in the morning and it was late. “Sorry.”

“No worries,” Matt said absently, picking up the pace a little.

Matt let go of Theo’s arm before they even reached his front stoop. “Have a good night,” he said over his shoulder as he headed toward the stairs. “See you tomorrow.”

“Yep,” Theo said, waiting awkwardly as Matt unlocked the front door. Then, stupidly, “Any time.”

Matt just raised his hand in a backward wave as he let himself in.

Theo sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets. The bruise on his thigh was starting to ache and he pressed on it with his thumb as he walked. Penance for being such a dumbass.

The subway was just around the corner from Matt’s place, right in front of a small Yemeni bodega. As he patted his pocket to make sure he had his MetroCard before going down, a flash of movement caught the corner of his eye.

He looked up above the bodega to see Daredevil standing on the roof. Theo had spotted glimpses of him before over the years, but he’d never seen him this up close. Daredevil seemed to notice him looking, and gave him a small two-finger salute by way of greeting. Theo lifted his hand in return, and then Daredevil turned and head back west, deeper into the Kitchen.

 _Huh_ , Theo thought as he jogged down the stairs to the station. He’d have to tell Matt and Foggy about that in the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> I also do the thing at [Tumblr](https://beaarthurpendragon.tumblr.com/) and sometimes on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/PendragonBea).


End file.
